Knowledge and ignorance

In the day-to-day navigation of any large organisation, knowledge pays dividends and ignorance exacts tolls. When you hear references to someone being:

• out on a limb,
• on a fool's errand,
  
• clueless,
• on a wild goose chase,
  
• up a tree,
• up the creek (paddle-less),
  
• having lost the plot, etc.,

it's usually about a failure of knowledge.

You're most vulnerable when you're in trouble, but don't yet know it. To keep those periods to their minimums, a certain level of 'background knowledge' is invaluable. Once you know there's a problem your chances of a solution are much improved.

In a university or other large organisation there are resources with which you should be forearmed.

• The agreement/contract that covers your work;
• the "Code of Conduct" or similar rules;
• the policies that affect you;
• the intellectual property policy; and
  
• the applicable rules of order (for those who preside at meetings)

You don't need to become the 'rule guru'—the person to whom everyone turns with their questions. I think, 'Skimming' or 'perusing' are the words I'm looking for.

I'm suggesting that you be informed enough to say, "That doesn't sound right to me, let's find out." After that the rest is just details.▪

Not everything that counts can be counted,
and not everything that can be counted counts.
—Sign in the Princeton office of Albert Einstein (1879-1955)